Please move up Necromancer rework to 2026

Kalthea · May 18

The problem with this feedback is that you are mixing lore between two different franchises. Necromancers in Elder Scrolls don't raise entire armies of the dead at once. Every being in the world is limited by their Magicka, and the amount of Magicka it would take in order to summon an entire undead army is not possible for any Man nor Mer to conceivably obtain. This is the very reason that the discovery of the Eye of Magnus in Skyrim was such a big deal, it was a massive font of Magicka with untapped and unknown potential. Meanwhile, Diablo necromancers are a welcomed practice, often being respected for tending graveside and keeping the dead at peace. In times of strife, the Necromancers in Sanctuary will take their knowledge of the dead and gather up their assistance, but they don't have the same Magicka restriction that people on Nirn do. You can't compare apples and oranges.

Now, on to some actual feedback for Necromancer in Elder Scrolls Online: I agree with the assessment that it is clunky. It lacks proper feedback, Blastbones is horrible and takes an unknowable amount of time to reach its target and then explode (I swear I have seen it disappear before even generating a corpse). The corpse system is a slog, often relying on a weird mini game to set things up before it can be used effectively. I have Blastbones set as the second skill I cast in my rotation specifically so I have enough time for it to explode by the time I get to the skill that needs a corpse on the ground (I run a weird hybrid setup, but the sentiment still applies).

When it comes to the idea of a skeletal army though, I think having a small squad of GOOD skeletal minions is the best option to go with. They aren't great, they aren't weak, just middle of the road. Give us maybe 2 or 3 skills with the ability to keep a skeleton buddy around. Make it so you can swap out the gravestones for a skeletal warrior, blastbones for a wizard and another skill for an archer.

But MOST IMPORTANTLY: ALL minions, from skills and armor effects and whatever else, NEED to share a common tag for boosting their damage. This way things like the Sorcerer passive that boosts Conjured Pet damage can affect all of your minions. It would also help to give them a bit more presence on the field, because man, minions barely contribute anything to DPS. Let the folks have their minion fun!

Silvains_Demon · May 18

Kalthea wrote: »

The problem with this feedback is that you are mixing lore between two different franchises. Necromancers in Elder Scrolls don't raise entire armies of the dead at once. Every being in the world is limited by their Magicka, and the amount of Magicka it would take in order to summon an entire undead army is not possible for any Man nor Mer to conceivably obtain. This is the very reason that the discovery of the Eye of Magnus in Skyrim was such a big deal, it was a massive font of Magicka with untapped and unknown potential. Meanwhile, Diablo necromancers are a welcomed practice, often being respected for tending graveside and keeping the dead at peace. In times of strife, the Necromancers in Sanctuary will take their knowledge of the dead and gather up their assistance, but they don't have the same Magicka restriction that people on Nirn do. You can't compare apples and oranges.

Now, on to some actual feedback for Necromancer in Elder Scrolls Online: I agree with the assessment that it is clunky. It lacks proper feedback, Blastbones is horrible and takes an unknowable amount of time to reach its target and then explode (I swear I have seen it disappear before even generating a corpse). The corpse system is a slog, often relying on a weird mini game to set things up before it can be used effectively. I have Blastbones set as the second skill I cast in my rotation specifically so I have enough time for it to explode by the time I get to the skill that needs a corpse on the ground (I run a weird hybrid setup, but the sentiment still applies).

When it comes to the idea of a skeletal army though, I think having a small squad of GOOD skeletal minions is the best option to go with. They aren't great, they aren't weak, just middle of the road. Give us maybe 2 or 3 skills with the ability to keep a skeleton buddy around. Make it so you can swap out the gravestones for a skeletal warrior, blastbones for a wizard and another skill for an archer.

But MOST IMPORTANTLY: ALL minions, from skills and armor effects and whatever else, NEED to share a common tag for boosting their damage. This way things like the Sorcerer passive that boosts Conjured Pet damage can affect all of your minions. It would also help to give them a bit more presence on the field, because man, minions barely contribute anything to DPS. Let the folks have their minion fun!

I understand what you mean for being against "an army of the undead" but having squads should be fine. Hell, I know for sure that the action economy of a whole minion setup from Diablo IV (which is not as bad as Diablo III as a Necromancer when you wear sets like Bones of Rathma). I did try to fix the issue with 2 different solutions. Hopefully, ZOS finds an actual solution for this that makes the Necromancer less of a mini-game and more of a class that fits the title.

icefyer_ESO · May 20

My main frustration with the necro is the lack of pets as mentioned before since the abilities are basically just normal effects but with a pet animation tacked on, but also the corpse mechanic just feels so clunky compared to something like Crux. With Arcanist, the skills don't require crux but are more powerful if they have some, while some abilities you're just entirely locked out of unless you have a corpse, but others follow a more Crux-like method of doing something extra if they use a corpse. Plus, crux can be brought with you to do whatever, while a corpse just sits there and if it's not where you need it, tough luck, too bad for you. Like if the lore of the corpse mechanic is using up lingering life energy in said corpses, why not just suck it up into a wisp of necromantic energy instead? Unless they plan to massively expand the "you can treat an ally / living enemy as a corpse" mechanic so that it's not just locked behind 2 class mastery passives.

That and overall the class lines just feel really lackluster outside of one or two abilities each, if that. Like everyone likes the flesh atronach ult for the ability and maybe the graveyard for their aoe debuffs, but as far as I can tell the general consensus is that almost all the rest of the skills aren't liked much and are very weak or super situational like that one heal that gives resists based on health healed. Skulls is slow and not worth it for the corpse generation because of it, the tether skills, as said, rely on you actually getting a corpse in the right spot, especially for the morphs that cause an aoe around the corpse itself, which at least for a healer isn't easy if you're using the healer ghost which can also only heal 1 / 3 people depending on morph while most multi-target heals can heal a full 6. It really says something when I'm a necro healer but I don't actually use any necro heals except for some of the passives.

Overall, I've heard good things about the DK rework, and it gives me some hope, but they definitely need to take their time if they're going to basically rework the class from the ground up.

Kalthea · May 22

Honestly, they should just replace the corpse system with a Black Soulstone replacement. Remove the abilities that rely on a corpse for tethering to, they were never great to begin with. Use the soulstones to summon a corpse on the point of impact or something.

brtomkin · May 22

Necromancer needs two permanent skeletal minions similar in both power, utility, and behavior as the pack leader werewolf's direwolves. If it has to be tied to a skill, make it a "while slotted on either bar" type skill.

Kalthea · May 22

brtomkin wrote: »

Necromancer needs two permanent skeletal minions similar in both power, utility, and behavior as the pack leader werewolf's direwolves. If it has to be tied to a skill, make it a "while slotted on either bar" type skill.

Careful with the permanent pet on backbar idea, that would lead to a lot of uproar about pets needing to be permanent no matter what bar they're on for Sorc and Warden bear eapecially.

LunaFlora · May 22

Kalthea wrote: »

brtomkin wrote: »

Necromancer needs two permanent skeletal minions similar in both power, utility, and behavior as the pack leader werewolf's direwolves. If it has to be tied to a skill, make it a "while slotted on either bar" type skill.

Careful with the permanent pet on backbar idea, that would lead to a lot of uproar about pets needing to be permanent no matter what bar they're on for Sorc and Warden bear eapecially.

people have wanted that for years and years for Warden and Sorcerer

nightbringer1993 · May 22

LunaFlora wrote: »

Kalthea wrote: »

brtomkin wrote: »

Necromancer needs two permanent skeletal minions similar in both power, utility, and behavior as the pack leader werewolf's direwolves. If it has to be tied to a skill, make it a "while slotted on either bar" type skill.

Careful with the permanent pet on backbar idea, that would lead to a lot of uproar about pets needing to be permanent no matter what bar they're on for Sorc and Warden bear eapecially.

people have wanted that for years and years for Warden and Sorcerer

For years we have been asking for a refresh. Five years! And when stalking blastbone got removed thing went worst!

We paid for a content we can’t even use because other classes are for too strong compared to us.

Right now we can’t afford to play with our class, and I was forced to leave the game as a result. And you are telling us that warden and sorcerer are more in need where they’re dominating in PvP, tanking and heavy attacks builds!

WE PAID FOR A CONTENT WE CANNOT EVEN USE!!!

Our class is destroyed! We can’t e even use it because other classes are too strong compared to us! And we are being kicked out of groups because we are using the necromancer class!

And we are supposed to accept that state up until winter 2027!

Right now! I feel like I am being exiled because I am a necromancer main. I stopped playing ESO because of the state of the game! And I feel like I wasted my money!

Kalthea · May 22

nightbringer1993 wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

Kalthea wrote: »

brtomkin wrote: »

Necromancer needs two permanent skeletal minions similar in both power, utility, and behavior as the pack leader werewolf's direwolves. If it has to be tied to a skill, make it a "while slotted on either bar" type skill.

Careful with the permanent pet on backbar idea, that would lead to a lot of uproar about pets needing to be permanent no matter what bar they're on for Sorc and Warden bear eapecially.

people have wanted that for years and years for Warden and Sorcerer

For years we have been asking for a refresh. Five years! And when stalking blastbone got removed thing went worst!

We paid for a content we can’t even use because other classes are for too strong compared to us.

Right now we can’t afford to play with our class, and I was forced to leave the game as a result. And you are telling us that warden and sorcerer are more in need where they’re dominating in PvP, tanking and heavy attacks builds!

WE PAID FOR A CONTENT WE CANNOT EVEN USE!!!

Our class is destroyed! We can’t e even use it because other classes are too strong compared to us! And we are being kicked out of groups because we are using the necromancer class!

And we are supposed to accept that state up until winter 2027!

Right now! I feel like I am being exiled because I am a necromancer main. I stopped playing ESO because of the state of the game! And I feel like I wasted my money!

This is a bit of an over-dramatic reaction, but I understand the sentiment at least.

Let me put it like this: What you see from Warden in PvP is not what you should be looking at. Warden is very much in need of a rework, ESPECIALLY their Magicka builds. I'm not sure if you've taken the time to build and play a MagDen, but they take a level of build-perfection that other classes don't need at all. That's why the constant adjustments to their frost damage passive in Winter's Embrace has been such a big sticking point.

None of that even goes into the issue of choice on the class. Because each of their skill lines are so focused on their given tasks, it leaves little room for adjustment or interaction between any of them. At most, you snag the ones for resource maintenance and leave it at that.

Now, that isn't to say Necromancer isn't also in a bad spot (corpses are for sure their biggest pain point). but Necromancer isn't any more "unplayable" than Warden. I think ignoring the problems with both classes is going to do more harm than good, and I would love to see both of these classes thrive in the best ways possible.